New House Blog: Episode CCXXV - Year In Review

 You would think an oil change would be no big deal.  I mean, I've done several, on a few different cars, so it's not like I'm completely unfamiliar with the process.  This wasn't even the first time I did an oil change on TIG (as seen in this Episode), but things just kept... But more on that later.  

It may be a bit early in AD 2024 to review the entire year, but it is the perfect time to review AD 2023.  You will have noticed that there was only one entire Episode in AD 2023.  This is, I think, in part because there were not a lot of actual New House projects completed in the past year.  Unlike our California House, our Texas House just did not need a lot of renovation and repair before or after moving in, so the pace of projects has slowed quite a bit.  However, we were not completely idle.  Among other things, we did some spring planting, built a new workbench, uncovered new artifacts, cleaned a mess off of the roof, replaced a mailbox flag, said goodbye to an awesome cat, adopted two kittens, grew a mustache, and performed the afore-mentioned oil change.  

Oil Change Saga

It came time for TIG's 70,000 mile (112,654.8 km) service, and the service guide calls for basically an oil change and a check of the brake pad thickness.  Normally I take TIG in to the dealer for regular maintenance, but I figured I would do the oil change myself and save some money.  I purchased oil change items from the dealer and on a sunny Saturday (I think it was a Saturday) I parked TIG halfway into the garage and proceeded with said oil change.

The first step of the actual oil change is opening the hood and removing the plastic engine cover. 

Next is removing the oil pan drain plug and draining the oil into an appropriate receptacle.  For this oil change I wisely purchased some genuine Pig Mat, just in case...  

On TIG the oil filter is in a housing at the top of the engine, for easy access.  After the oil was drained I removed the housing and the used filter, then installed the new filter into the housing, and spilled about a half quart (473.177 ml) of brand new motor oil on the top of the engine.  After soaking up as much oil as possible with the presciently-purchased Pig Mat, and uselessly raging at the oil dripping down onto inaccessible parts of the engine, I proceeded to reinstall the filter housing and new filter.

The plastic filter housing specifies tightening to 25 +5 Nm (18.439 pound feet) of torque.  This means between 25 and 30 Nm, and my torque wrench's lowest setting is between 25 and 30 Nm.  However, I hadn't used my torque wrench in a few years, so I forgot just what it feels like when it gets to the pre-set torque, and I proceeded to go WAY WAY WAY past 25 +5 Nm of torque on that poor, plastic filter housing.  It broke in an unrepairable way, but I thought that just maybe I could safely drive it as far as the dealer (about 30 minutes (176.470 decaseconds) away in good traffic) to get a replacement part.  So I filled the engine with the prescribed "about 6 quarts" (378.541 metric tablespoons (yes, that is a real metric unit of measurement)), and did a brief test drive around the neighborhood.  As expected by everyone reading this, the test was a failure, and my poor TIG was temporarily inoperable.  

Fortunately, Becky's truck was available for me to drive to the dealer the next day to get a new filter housing and another complete oil change kit (6 quarts of oil (1,135.624 metric teaspoons (yes, this is another genuine metric unit of measure)), filter, drain plug, o-ring for filter housing).  Before doing the second complete oil change in two days I wisely took the time to refamiliarize myself with my torque wrench.  The second oil change proceeded much as the first, but without the spilling and without the breakage of the filter housing.  In the end, what I paid for two complete oil changes and a new filter housing was about the same as going to the dealer for the 70,000 mile (112.65408e12 microns) service.

Roof Cleaning

Speaking of spills and messes, I had to go up on the roof in November to clean up an unsightly (and unsmelltly) mess on the roof.  I won't go into details, but it did give me the opportunity get a few photos of the area from a different perspective.

You can see pretty far across the flat land of our area.

And there are some tall trees, and clouds.

While up on the roof, I verified that yes, indeed, our solar panels (which we cannot see from below) do actually exist on our roof.

Behold our somewhat new chimney.  We won't talk about what's in the white plastic bag.

Cute Cat Interlude

And now for the obligatory cute cat interlude.

In August we had to say goodbye to Mr. Satchmo.  His ongoing health issues finally all caught up with him.  We had 15 good years together.

Daisy is now the oldest in the house, at almost 15 years old.  She is still going strong, and she still does not like most other cats.

This is Edgar.  He will be 11 in August.

Fillmore was the youngest, at 8 (as of April 15, 2024), but he has been surpassed in youngness by...  More on that later.

Workbench Build

As I did at our California House (see this Episode), I built a new workbench in the garage of our Texas House.  This one is bigger (everything is bigger in Texas) and possibly stronger, than the last one I built, and it is of slightly different design.  But didn't I already build two workbenches in this Episode?  Yes, but they were always intended to be temporary workbenches until such time as I could build a permanent workbench.  One of them was disassembled, and one still serves as a small table.

The raw materials for my new workbench.  You can also see the two previously-mentioned temporary workbenches in this photo.

For this workbench I got a workbench kit, which included angled brackets and all of the bolts and nuts, but not the wood, off of Amazon.  They brackets work great, but I found out to my dismay that they are not quite a true 90-degree (π/2 radians) angle.  Thus my new workbench has a very very slight parallelogramish profile, but it is only one or two degrees (π/180 to 2π/180 radians), so visitors should not even notice.

Assembly of the components was pretty straightforward.

At some point I figured out that I should get a wood-specific drill bit for drilling all of my bolt holes, and it really sped up the drilling process, compared to using a general-purpose bit.

Almost done.  the red snap line dust marks where I added the center support.

This is the finished workbench.  It has two vises - one is the blue forged steel Capri bench vise that we brought from our California House, and the other is a black Yost 10" (30 barleycorn) woodworkers vise that I bought for our California House, but never installed.

Final dimensions: the deck is 30" x 60", and it is 33.75" tall (0.0379 chain x 0.758 chain x 0.0426 chain (yes, chain is a real measurement unit)), not including backsplash.

Cute Kitten Overload!

Now we get to the part you were all waiting for - new kittens!!  In September, after an afternoon musical performance, we stopped by the local animal shelter to look for a kitten.  One of us did not know we would be stopping there until after said musical performance, but he did not object.  After looking at a few individually-caged cats and kittens we went into the big room o' kittens.  Two or three immediately (maybe it was four or five) came over to us, and two in particular started climbing on me.  One of us had mostly decided we should take the one kitten who was the most attentive, but the other of us thought we should get the two as a pair (they are littermates), and I did not object.  

Meet Oscar and Twylla!!!  Oscar is the blondie, and Twyla is the grayish.  They will be one year old on April 26, 2024.

They mostly stick together and they seem to have no concept of personal space.  The other cats, however, do not share this feeling.

Oscar is the more active of the two, and Twylla is the more cuddlesome.

Did I mention that they have no concept of personal space?

Mailbox Flag Repair?

Not long after we moved in to our Texas House, our mailbox flag fell off.  Our mailbox is encased in stone (and mortar), and it seems like someone just drilled a hole and used a drywall screw (with washer) to attach a plastic mailbox flag.  We like to send, as well as receive, mail, so we decided to replace the mailbox flag with something a little more sturdy (or so we thought).

Meet our new mailbox flag.  It is of all metal construction.  The bracket is held in by three masonry screws and epoxy.

It has both an up and a down position.

A few months after installation, the flag fell off.  It seems that rivet holding the flag to the bracket was not up to snuff.  But I tell you what - that bracket is not going anywhere.  We have not yet figured out a good method for re-attaching the flag.

Wildlife

Our Texas House has a lot of wildlife around it.  Deer are the most prevalent (unless you count squirrels), and we have raccoons and foxes and coyotes and snakes.

One example of the later is this venomous coral snake hiding among the rocks in front of our Texas House.  I have only seen one other coral snake since we moved in, mentioned in this Episode.

As with the previous encounter, this fellow was moving away from me, and I did not chase him down.  Remember: red and yellow, you're dead fellow.  There are plenty of other rhymes and resources on the interwebs regarding how to identify coral snakes, so go ahead and scare yourself silly.

Here are some local fawns.  These are partially mature, but they have a ways to grow (as of when this photo was captured).  Also seen is the new Redbud Tree we planted to replace the Cedar Elm that was planted (and subsequently mauled by a deer) in this Episode.  Said cedar elm succumbed, we believe, to its original injury, so we replaced it with this redbud.  Redbuds are common here, and they seem to do well.  

This is a better view of the redbud and its distinctive leaves.  I would give y'all the latin name, but there are several varieties of redbud, and I don't recall which variety this is.

More Kittens!!!!

We still call him Edgar Kitten, so he is included here.

When there is this much cuteness, who needs words?

BYA Update

We found a couple of new artifacts in AD 2023.

First up we have this collection of what appears to be: a slightly-used abrasive disk of some sort, a plastic grill (possibly for a drain), and a section of this rusty, weak rebar.  We have not been able to determine an exact date for any of these three artifacts.

Next up is this partially buried concrete slab.  We estimate that this was likely from the era when our Texas House was constructed.

Beneath the concrete slab we found this earthworm.  We do not know his exact species, and he did not shed any light on the dating of the slab.

End Of Year Photos

Finally, we wrap up this Episode with some photos from around the end of the year, AD 2023.

We had the opportunity to use our wood fireplace toward the end of the year.

We do love us a good wood fire.

As usual, we put up some Christmas lights.  Also as usual, we expanded a bit.  We used four sets of solar Christmas lights this year.

Here we are enjoying our traditional Christmas Eve meal.  How we both ended up with fish and chips I do not know.

¡Feliz Navidad, y Felize Año Nuevo!

    bIsh